An extremely exciting month for Gladiator Manager – it’s release time!

It’s turning into an extremely hectic month for me as the pressure and hype ramps up ahead of full release on Steam.

There’s a great deal going on, mainly playtesting and marketing. I’m glad to say that the final few bugs seem to have been squished and there are hopefully no game-breakers left anywhere. I am touching wood.



Features

Aside from a few minor QOL improvements and Easter eggs there are no new features, as you’d hope at this stage, but I can assure players that some post-release features are certainly planned, including:

Scouting system
Fighter synergies (including personality and nationality)
Achievement rewards; and
Persistent morale and energy.



Marketing

I’ve been slow-burning the marketing so far, mainly on Steam, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and my own website. I’ve spent some money on it, but really only a trivial level.

This month things are ramping up for release. I have a promotor – Hans Olsen of Game Promotor – and a number of influencers on YouTube and Twitch. I have also been contacted independently by about a dozen journalists wanting to write articles. This is really cool – thanks so much to everyone helping me out!

The results of this increased activity are just beginning to show with an accelerating up-tick in wishlisting – now approaching 1,000 people on the list. I really appreciate all of you taking an interest! It’s incredibly gratifying to see people wanting to play a game I’ve spent so much time lovingly crafting.

On that note – many thanks also to my recent playtesters, and especially Crazed Redneck who has devoted many hours to playing and replaying campaigns to ferret out all those last problems. His obvious enjoyment of the game, keen to play it over and over, encourages me that I’ve managed to put together some fun features here, and I must admit I’m really enjoying playing through it myself now. Forcing myself to just play, and ignore all my instincts to quickly log out and improve some tiny visual thing or embark on a whole new feature!



I’m certainly now spending more on marketing, on a ‘spend money to make money’ basis. There are quite a number of options and I won’t have to get much interest back to make those investments at least cost-neutral.

Overall, projections based on wishlist numbers (obviously assuming only a fraction buy the game, but more come in on release) suggest that I’m probably going to make my money back on this project, likely breaking about even after all software, contractor, web, training, artist and marketing costs are covered. To be honest I will see that as a massive result for a first major project so if it comes together I’ll be delighted. Hopefully over a much longer term period I might even have something to show for it.



Get Involved!

If you’re reading this and don’t have the game on your wishlist, go add it now!



If you’re a journalist, youtuber, twitcher, influencer etc. – do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions, comments, requests etc.

I can’t wait for release, to see how everyone enjoys the game!